Just when I think I’m out of it – they drag me back in!
Hi, I’m the Epistler and I will be your![]()
the_bishop8 substitute for the day because somebody decided to give me a pity spork after a different somebody stole my copy of Self-Published Eragon right off my frigging doorstep. I’m not in a good mood at all. So thank all that’s holy, here’s something obnoxious to take it out on!
Eragon and Saphira head over to Roran’s tent. By… uh, jumping. No really. The text says Saphira gets them there with “a series of giddying leaps”.
This strikes me as ridiculously unsafe given that they’re in the middle of a crowded army camp. How does she even have enough room to do this? Come to that, why do we even need to know this little detail when it creates a weird mental image and raises way too many unanswered questions?
Oh, right. We don’t. Moving on.
And here’s Katrina! I wonder what our brave and feisty free-spirited butcher’s daughter is doing now she’s married?
Laundry.
She’s doing the laundry.
Paolini could have had her doing anything else, but nope. Laundry. In fact, guess what Katrina is doing every single time someone comes visiting her tent? Yep, you guessed it. Laundry. Well okay, there’s also the memorable moment when she makes Roran’s dinner and tells him what an awesome guy he is.
And this will now be her sole function for the entire rest of the series. Laundry and preparing food for her psychotic murderous husband. Oh, and being pregnant. Hey, did you know the Varden has its own mess tent with cooks? Where you can go at any time to obtain food? And though I don’t think it’s mentioned, there’s almost certainly a team of washerwomen available?
Why, then, is Katrina doing all the cooking and cleaning for Roran? Because that’s what a Good Wife Does, of course. Cooks and cleans and has babies. Paolini literally couldn’t come up with anything else for her to do. For gods’ sakes, doesn’t she have any goals in life? Any personal aspirations? Hopes and dreams? Anything other than being Roran’s doormat?
Apparently not.
I’m so insulted I can’t even find the will to get angry. Instead I’m just feeling extremely tired all of a sudden. I need to go and watch the Wonder Woman movie again just to clear out my system.
Anyway, so then Eragon breaks the news that he’s leaving, and does it in a typical overblown and pompous fashion because that’s just how he talks now. He also swears Roran to secrecy (not in the AL, interestingly enough), and says even the Carpal Tunnel villagers can’t know.
‘…Let them think I have become a rude and ungrateful lout before you so much as utter a word about Nasuada’s scheme.’
Why would anyone suspect a thing, Eragon? You’re already a rude ungrateful lout – who’s going to notice the difference? It’s not as if you go out of your way to spend time with that lot to begin with. I’m surprised you even bothered to remember any of their names.
This is almost as hilarious when he indignantly told Sloan he wasn’t a murderer, then murdered someone less than a week later.
Roran then unceremoniously announces that he’s leaving too. It’s so unceremonious that we don’t even see him say it; the narrator just tells us he did. He explains that he’s being sent off on a mission to attack an Imperial supply train. Eragon then comments that they’re all going their separate ways, which isn’t true because Saphira and Katrina aren’t going anywhere. Paolini then pretends that they’ll actually be in danger, when Eragon reflects that there’s a chance they’ll never see each other alive again. Sob!
The suspense!!
This is a moment that would work in a book with actual peril in it, in which named characters die unexpectedly. Instead it’s so meaningless I almost missed it entirely. We already know full-well that none of these characters are ever going to come to any harm. They’ve all been repeatedly shown as having Plot Armour so thick they aren’t even allowed to be injured in any meaningful way. All four of them have escaped situations which should have killed or severely wounded them, multiple times, without getting so much as a hangnail. Even the laziest and most naïve of readers knows by this point that this state of affairs is never going to change.
Either way the melodrama continues, as Saphira fulfills her sole plot function of spouting painfully cheesy and annoying platitudes.
Together, Roran and Katrina went to Saphira and touched their foreheads to her long, bony snout. Her chest vibrated as she produced a pure bass note deep within her throat.
Remember, Roran, she said, do not make the mistake of leaving your enemies alive. And, Katrina? Do not dwell on that which you cannot change. It will only worsen your distress.
It’s very dramatic. And moving. It’s dra-moving. Also, minor side-note – I really wish Saphira (in fact, all the dragons in this series, ie. all three of them) would stop it with the humming and bugling and trumpeting and whatnot. It was irritating to read in Dragonriders of Pern, and it’s even more irritating seeing it ripped off here.
Note too that’s she’s basically telling Roran that mercy is never an option. Kill every last sonofabitch and the horse they rode in on, and then jump up and down on the bodies! I guess Roran really takes her advice seriously, because that’s exactly what he will now start doing in every fight scene. And from now on when he counts his victims, it won’t be a Shameful Burden – nah, now it’s just his high score. And boy do I pity the poor bastard who has to spork that particular chapter. (Knowing how my luck has been going lately, it will probably be me).
With this annoying scene thankfully over and done with, Eragon and Saphira head over to the mess tent (See? I told you the Varden had one). It even has long tables for the soldiers to sit at. And honestly, all I’m picturing now is something from one of those open-air festivals where they set up temporary bars in tents, full of long tables where you can sit and drink beer and eat pretzels.
Oktoberfest, that’s it! It’s exactly like something from Oktoberfest. Or maybe a Renfaire (always wanted to go to one of those. Sadly they don’t have them here).
We also get descriptions of a bunch of guys cooking food and washing pots. They’re so busy that they don’t even pay attention to Eragon and Saphira. GASP! That’s just so incredibly insulting. And when the guy in charge, inexplicably named Quoth, comes over to see what they want, he only gives a “curt” bow to Eragon. THE HORROR! This is the sort of grave personal insult that should result in the bloody slaughter of the offender’s family for the last three generations. (Sad to say, I can picture Eragon actually doing something like that way too easily).
Or maybe this is a hint that we’re not supposed to like this guy, which would explain why what happens next is apparently meant to be funny rather than obnoxious and douchey as hell.
Quoth offers Eragon food, but he explains that they’re there so Saphira can get something to eat because there’s no time for her to hunt in the normal way. Which makes no freaking sense because Saphira isn’t going anywhere. Nor does she take Eragon with her when she goes hunting. In fact she actively goes off and does it by herself.
This entire scene is utterly unnecessary, and you know what? I have a nasty suspicion it’s only here as a “comic relief” moment. And Paolini writes comic relief about as well as a man gives birth. Every time that guy tries to make us laugh, a comedian hangs himself.
Hey, you know what always makes me laugh? Seeing a supposed Good Guy terrify and intimidate an innocent person just because she can! Which is exactly what Saphira does. Quoth offers her some sides of roast beef (just how many cows does the Varden have with them that they can afford to slaughter this many on a single day? Meat doesn’t keep for long without refrigeration, you know). Rather than use Eragon to relay what she wants, Saphira growls at the poor sod and scares the piss out of him. Eragon blandly states that she wants a live animal (why?).
Naturally he has no reaction to seeing her act like this. No sympathy for Quoth, no irritation toward Saphira. He’s just kind of there, being the emotionless cardboard cutout he usually is.
Saphira then demands a barrel of mead to wash it down. Quoth freaks out, stammering that the mead is reserved for someone else so he can’t give her any. Saphira’s reaction to this is to breathe fire at him. Upon which Quoth very understandably shits his pants and gives in to her demands.
Eragon? Still completely indifferent. I’m forced to assume that this is because he’s totally okay with bullying and physically threatening people.
They head over to the livestock pens, and Saphira sneers that the cows and such are “pitiful prey”. Yeah, because a cow that’s been given plenty of food every day, has never had to exercise overmuch and probably receives medical attention on a regular basis is just going to be so tough and stringy compared to a skinny wild deer which is probably riddled with parasites.
Shut the fuck up, Saphira. I’ve met three year olds who were less whiny and spoilt than you. I mean really – what sort of person gets snotty and picky about something they’re being given for free?
Other than Eragon, I mean. Maybe that’s where he got his lousy attitude from.
Or maybe they’re just both a pair of complete assholes who act like the sun shines out of their posteriers 24-7.
Anyway, moving on – Saphira also whines about how she’s not actually hungry. Eragon suggests she pick a smaller animal, but she says no – it has to be something big for his purposes. We now learn that in fact the real reason they’re doing this is so Eragon can grab some “energy” off a dying animal as Saphira kills it. Wow, that’s… fucking creepy as hell.
We get a detailed description of what the cow Saphira picks looks like, because of course we do, and we also get to see the poor thing’s terror as they lead it over to her. I feel more sympathy for this nameless cow than for any of the alleged heroes. Saphira kills it in gruesome detail, and Eragon snatches its energy. We get a description of that too.
Closing his eyes, Eragon reached out with his mind toward the cow. The animal’s consciousness had already faded into darkness, but its body was still alive, its flesh thrumming with motive energy, which was all the more intense for the fear that had coursed through it moments before. Repugnance for what he was about to do filled Eragon, but he ignored it and, placing a hand over the belt of Beloth the Wise, transferred what energy he could from the body of the cow into the twelve diamonds hidden around his waist. The process took only a few seconds.
Aw, look, he’s pretending to have a conscience again. It’s so cute when he does that. Hey, remember how he felt “repugnance” when he snapped that captured soldier’s neck in cold blood, and when he slaughtered all those guys at the Battle of the Burning Plain? I don’t. Also, what the fuck is “motive energy” and what is that term even doing in a fantasy novel for 13 year old kids? And just who the hell is Beloth the Wise? I bet Paolini doesn’t even know.
Tangent time! I once wrote a short story in which the protagonist finds a super valuable gemstone which is said to be cursed. It’s specifically stated that the stone was mined in a certain country which the reader is already familiar with, then stolen from the treasury of the ruler of a different country the reader is also familiar with. This took me less than a paragraph to get across because I was working within established lore/geography from the setting.
Paolini, on the other hand, just drops this stuff in with zero context and never takes it any further than that. Which makes his attempts at lore come across as shallow and meaningless because it’s not connected to anything. Beloth the Wise isn’t important because he doesn’t exist and never has existed. He’s just a name with nothing whatsoever attached to it, and there’s no more to it than that.
Anyway, so while Saphira is enjoying her “pitiful prey”, Eragon aborbs the energy from all the other animals who are currently being slaughtered by the cooks.
Wait, why did he need to bring Saphira into it, then? Couldn’t he have just hung around and done exactly what he’s doing now? He moans about how he hates doing it because he has to share the pain and fear of the animals as they’re killed. Apparently the diamonds in his belt seem to have unlimited capacity and he only stops when he just can’t stand the horror any more.
Hey, you know what I just reailsed? Eragon only has a problem with other people/animals’ pain and suffering if he’s mentally sharing it. Otherwise he doesn’t give a rat’s ass. Think about it. He didn’t feel any anguish at all while personally slaughtering those soldiers on the way back from Helgrind, or any of the other times he hacked up other humans like deli meat. But now he’s in these animals’ heads and feeling it as they die, he suddenly cares.
This leads me to conclude that he only feels empathy when he literally has no other choice. The rest of the time he’s fine and dandy. I know it’s been said a zillion times before but – PSYCHOPATH. I mean, come on! He only feels it if he’s FORCED to. He doesn’t feel empathy as a matter of course like the rest of us.
Good fuck this guy is creepy. I couldn’t write a more horrifying villain if I tried.
Saphira finishes her num-nums, then asks for her stolen mead. She drinks it and then sneezes fire. This time Eragon cares that she’s recklessly breathing fire in a public place, because it singes his face.
See? When she’s doing it deliberately to a hapless terrified ally, he doesn’t care. But when it mildly inconveniences him he suddenly has a problem with it and gives her a telling off.
Again, psychopath.
The two of them fly back to his tent, where they have a moment in which they let their “shared emotions” speak for themselves.
What shared emotions? I don’t know; it doesn’t say. It just says they have emotions. Don’t ask me how I can possibly be expected to empathise with them right now when I don’t even know what they’re supposed to be feeling.
I really wish Paolini would stop skipping over his characters’ emotional reactions as if they were some sort of minor trivial detail. Apparently describing the exact markings on a cow’s flank and speculating about a nameless dead soldier’s mustache is more important. Priorities, people!
Finally they separate their minds, which Eragon finds traumatic. Why? It’s not as if their mental bond actually does anything other than letting them talk telepathically. Yes, Paolini, I know that’s not supposed to be the case but you’re still wrong. If it’s not on the page, then as far as I’m concerned it isn’t canon.
We then get a ridiculously detailed description of everything Eragon packs for the trip. This includes a copy of the shitty poem he wrote in Elfland. In a few years once he’s written a hell of a lot more poetry he’s going to be SO embarrassed by his terrible first effort. I know I was.
Wait, he never does write any more poetry, does he? And I distinctly remember him claiming to really enjoy it back in Eldest. I guess it’s just not important any more. By which I mean Paolini forgot about it or couldn’t be bothered to follow through. And don’t tell me it’s because Eragon just doesn’t have the free time any more. He’s got time to hang out with irrelevant side characters and bully people into giving his dragon free mead. If he really wanted to keep on with the poetry he’d be doing it.
Anyhoo, along with that he also packs the “faelnirv” energy drink Oromis gave him (I vote we start calling it Elforade) plus a “small soapstone box of nalgask”. Wait, what? What’s nalgask? I have zero recollection of this ever being mentioned before. Could someone please enlighten me? Why is it in a soapstone box anyway? What is it for? What does it do? Why am I supposed to even care? What was in that mysterious glowing briefcase? Who really shot JFK? And how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?
He doesn’t bother to pack any spare underpants or anything, though, because he assumes that the dwarves will just give him free clothes when he gets there. I’m sure they have plenty of human-sized clothing lying around, Eragon. So don’t you worry your empty little head about it, you whiny, spoilt, entitled, psychopathic piece of shit.
Then he casts a spell of invisibilty on himself. Which would have been so incredibly useful back when, oh I don’t know, he was running around in enemy territory unarmed and without his dragon. What the actual fuck? Did Paolini even bother to think ahead at all? (My money is on “no”). I’d buy him not having used it before if there was some sort of explanation, like maybe it only lasts for ten minutes at a time and takes a lot of energy, but nope. We get nothing.
Let’s not even get into all the other plot holes this spell just created, such as why he doesn’t use it during fights. In fact, why doesn’t he ever use it to sneak into places like – oh, I don’t know – Dras-Leona? Seriously, why do they even need to have seiges and mass slaughter when this superpowered douchebag can just magic himself invisible, get into the castle undetected, take the leader hostage and force them to order a surrender? Think of the number of lives it could save! But once again, Mr Humane and Empathetic, Butter-Wouldn’t-Melt-In-His-Mouth never so much as considers it, and nor does anyone else.
To misquote a snarky movie critic I’m rather fond of, this novel is really starting to hurt me in my common sense.
He then cuts his way out of the back of his tent for no reason. Also for no reason, Furry Elf (we really need to come up with a better goofy nickname for him so we don’t have to keep looking for the “insert symbol” function on Microsoft Word) is standing guard behind the tent rather than in front of it.
…I wonder if the tent has any “wards” on it? In fact, why don’t ALL the tends have stupid wards on them to make them fireproof? They’re in a war up against DRAGONS, for gods’ sakes! Apparently that was just too much effort; in the next book a bunch of Varden mooks get roasted alive in their tents after Thorn sets them on fire. But who cares about them, right? They’re not elves or bonded to any dragons, so they can all fuck off and die as far as Our Hero is concerned.
Moving on… Furry Anime Ripoff Guy knows it’s Eragon despite the invisibility spell (I guess he sensed his mind or some bullshit like that), and just calmly lets him go on his way. What, he doesn’t want an explanation as to what the hell Mr Centre of the Universe is doing walking around invisible and vandalising his own tent?
I’m going to assume he figured Ergs was off to spy on Arya in the bath and decided to refrain from commenting.
Eragon then sneaks out of the camp, and makes a big screaming deal out of it. What if someone spots his “footprints of shadow”? (Chapter title drop!). What if someone hears him??
Dude, you’re in an army camp with lots of people wandering about. Nobody’s going to notice a damn thing. Maybe if people were actively looking for you, but otherwise – no.
Once he’s gotten over the defensive wall thingy, he even casts a spell to hide his footprints in the dirt. Okay, this has crossed far over the line into just plain paranoid behaviour. Not to mention that he’s wasting magic; I don’t have magical powers despite what my admirers apparently believe, but I can hide footprints pretty easily using the arcane instrument known as “A Stick With Leaves On It”. Failing that I can employ the mystic art known as “Scuffing Up The Ground With The Side Of My Boot, Which Has A Steel Toecap For Kicking People In The Shins And Breaking Down Doors”.
Eragon finally runs off, still being super paranoid that someone might spot the tiny puffs of dust from his shoes. He really thinks he’s Just That Important, doesn’t he? Everybody always pays attention to him, even when he’s invisible! (And later on when he’s not even present).
He eventually comes across Nar Garz- you know what, I’m not being paid enough to bother to get the spelling right – the Urgal leader, Gargle, waiting for him. For some bizarre reason the moment Eragon calls out to him his invisibility spell stops working. It doesn’t actually say that; it just randomly says he’s “visible again” immediately after he speaks out. He doesn’t cast a counter-spell or anything of the sort.
So… the spell is contingent on the user keeping his mouth shut? Now I have another reason to ask why Eragon doesn’t use it more often. The less that pompous little asshat opens his big stupid mouth, the better.
Eragon asks why Gargle is coming with him, given that he’s the leader. I’d say it’s because Paolini couldn’t be bothered to introduce a new character. Gargle says it’s because Eragon is super important (gosh, really? I had no idea. This is only the 50,000th time that’s been pounded into my head) and without him the Urgals can’t have their revenge on Galbatorix. Oh, and apparently they’re not really called Urgals – the proper name is “Urgralgra”. I guess that name was slightly less ridiculous, hence the retcon? Wait, what am I even saying? That's ten times worse!
Okay, here’s a challenge for you guys at home. Gurgle adds that his “blood brother” (what does that even mean) will be taking charge while he’s away. Can anyone here pronounce the guy’s name? I tried it, and according to my doctor I won’t be able to operate heavy machinery or eat spicy food for two weeks. They still haven’t figured out where my tonsils landed, but part of my tongue eventually turned up on the roof and I’m still coughing up pieces of larynx.
It’s “Skgahgrezh”. Where was this guy when the vowels were handed out – behind the door? Thank all that’s holy, as far as I know Skrgrargeagegwag won’t ever be mentioned again.
Oh yeah, and apparently Eragon’s name among the Urgals is “Firesword”. I’ve said it before, but don’t you just love it how fantasy heroes collect new names/titles like they’re ribbons at a primary school eisteddfod? How many bloody titles does Eragon have by this point? I’ve counted at least four so far.
Hypothetical Hack Fantasy Author:“Hmm, maybe if my self-insert protagonist has a really cool name/title he’ll magically stop being a total weenie! And if he has five or six of the things, he’ll become even more Awesome! Oh, and I’ll give him lots of cool possessions/abilities too! …Character development? Nah, that’s too much like hard work.”
We also learn that Eragon is still a huge racist:
Of all the Urgals, he trusted Garzhvog the most, for he had probed the Kull’s consciousness before the Battle of the Burning Plains and had discovered that, by the standards of his race, Garzhvog was honest and reliable.As long as he doesn’t decide that his honor requires him to challenge me to a duel, we should have no cause for conflict
“By the standards of his race”.
By the standards of his race.
Seriously. I know this is going to sound really offensive but fuck it, I’m going to do it anyway because it needs to be said – take that paragraph and replace “Urgal” with “Negro” or some equally nasty term for someone who’s not white. In fact, try picturing Gargle as a human who happens to be black or Asian or Jewish, and then try to imagine that this thought of Eragon’s isn’t obscenely racist and horrible. I mean, my gods. This is worse than the old “oh, (black guy) is so well-spoken!”
It gets even worse in the next chapter, when we learn that Urgal culture is basically an ignorant ripoff of Native American/tribal cultures, and again later on when their reward for joining the Varden is being handed some nice reservations to live on. Hey, did you know Montana has a depressingly large population of white supremacists? I’m just throwing it out there.
Thankfully, the chapter finally ends before I burst a blood vessel.
Hi, I’m the Epistler and I will be your
the_bishop8 substitute for the day because somebody decided to give me a pity spork after a different somebody stole my copy of Self-Published Eragon right off my frigging doorstep. I’m not in a good mood at all. So thank all that’s holy, here’s something obnoxious to take it out on!Eragon and Saphira head over to Roran’s tent. By… uh, jumping. No really. The text says Saphira gets them there with “a series of giddying leaps”.
This strikes me as ridiculously unsafe given that they’re in the middle of a crowded army camp. How does she even have enough room to do this? Come to that, why do we even need to know this little detail when it creates a weird mental image and raises way too many unanswered questions?
Oh, right. We don’t. Moving on.
And here’s Katrina! I wonder what our brave and feisty free-spirited butcher’s daughter is doing now she’s married?
Laundry.
She’s doing the laundry.
Paolini could have had her doing anything else, but nope. Laundry. In fact, guess what Katrina is doing every single time someone comes visiting her tent? Yep, you guessed it. Laundry. Well okay, there’s also the memorable moment when she makes Roran’s dinner and tells him what an awesome guy he is.
And this will now be her sole function for the entire rest of the series. Laundry and preparing food for her psychotic murderous husband. Oh, and being pregnant. Hey, did you know the Varden has its own mess tent with cooks? Where you can go at any time to obtain food? And though I don’t think it’s mentioned, there’s almost certainly a team of washerwomen available?
Why, then, is Katrina doing all the cooking and cleaning for Roran? Because that’s what a Good Wife Does, of course. Cooks and cleans and has babies. Paolini literally couldn’t come up with anything else for her to do. For gods’ sakes, doesn’t she have any goals in life? Any personal aspirations? Hopes and dreams? Anything other than being Roran’s doormat?
Apparently not.
I’m so insulted I can’t even find the will to get angry. Instead I’m just feeling extremely tired all of a sudden. I need to go and watch the Wonder Woman movie again just to clear out my system.
Anyway, so then Eragon breaks the news that he’s leaving, and does it in a typical overblown and pompous fashion because that’s just how he talks now. He also swears Roran to secrecy (not in the AL, interestingly enough), and says even the Carpal Tunnel villagers can’t know.
‘…Let them think I have become a rude and ungrateful lout before you so much as utter a word about Nasuada’s scheme.’
Why would anyone suspect a thing, Eragon? You’re already a rude ungrateful lout – who’s going to notice the difference? It’s not as if you go out of your way to spend time with that lot to begin with. I’m surprised you even bothered to remember any of their names.
This is almost as hilarious when he indignantly told Sloan he wasn’t a murderer, then murdered someone less than a week later.
Roran then unceremoniously announces that he’s leaving too. It’s so unceremonious that we don’t even see him say it; the narrator just tells us he did. He explains that he’s being sent off on a mission to attack an Imperial supply train. Eragon then comments that they’re all going their separate ways, which isn’t true because Saphira and Katrina aren’t going anywhere. Paolini then pretends that they’ll actually be in danger, when Eragon reflects that there’s a chance they’ll never see each other alive again. Sob!
The suspense!!
This is a moment that would work in a book with actual peril in it, in which named characters die unexpectedly. Instead it’s so meaningless I almost missed it entirely. We already know full-well that none of these characters are ever going to come to any harm. They’ve all been repeatedly shown as having Plot Armour so thick they aren’t even allowed to be injured in any meaningful way. All four of them have escaped situations which should have killed or severely wounded them, multiple times, without getting so much as a hangnail. Even the laziest and most naïve of readers knows by this point that this state of affairs is never going to change.
Either way the melodrama continues, as Saphira fulfills her sole plot function of spouting painfully cheesy and annoying platitudes.
Together, Roran and Katrina went to Saphira and touched their foreheads to her long, bony snout. Her chest vibrated as she produced a pure bass note deep within her throat.
Remember, Roran, she said, do not make the mistake of leaving your enemies alive. And, Katrina? Do not dwell on that which you cannot change. It will only worsen your distress.
It’s very dramatic. And moving. It’s dra-moving. Also, minor side-note – I really wish Saphira (in fact, all the dragons in this series, ie. all three of them) would stop it with the humming and bugling and trumpeting and whatnot. It was irritating to read in Dragonriders of Pern, and it’s even more irritating seeing it ripped off here.
Note too that’s she’s basically telling Roran that mercy is never an option. Kill every last sonofabitch and the horse they rode in on, and then jump up and down on the bodies! I guess Roran really takes her advice seriously, because that’s exactly what he will now start doing in every fight scene. And from now on when he counts his victims, it won’t be a Shameful Burden – nah, now it’s just his high score. And boy do I pity the poor bastard who has to spork that particular chapter. (Knowing how my luck has been going lately, it will probably be me).
With this annoying scene thankfully over and done with, Eragon and Saphira head over to the mess tent (See? I told you the Varden had one). It even has long tables for the soldiers to sit at. And honestly, all I’m picturing now is something from one of those open-air festivals where they set up temporary bars in tents, full of long tables where you can sit and drink beer and eat pretzels.
Oktoberfest, that’s it! It’s exactly like something from Oktoberfest. Or maybe a Renfaire (always wanted to go to one of those. Sadly they don’t have them here).
We also get descriptions of a bunch of guys cooking food and washing pots. They’re so busy that they don’t even pay attention to Eragon and Saphira. GASP! That’s just so incredibly insulting. And when the guy in charge, inexplicably named Quoth, comes over to see what they want, he only gives a “curt” bow to Eragon. THE HORROR! This is the sort of grave personal insult that should result in the bloody slaughter of the offender’s family for the last three generations. (Sad to say, I can picture Eragon actually doing something like that way too easily).
Or maybe this is a hint that we’re not supposed to like this guy, which would explain why what happens next is apparently meant to be funny rather than obnoxious and douchey as hell.
Quoth offers Eragon food, but he explains that they’re there so Saphira can get something to eat because there’s no time for her to hunt in the normal way. Which makes no freaking sense because Saphira isn’t going anywhere. Nor does she take Eragon with her when she goes hunting. In fact she actively goes off and does it by herself.
This entire scene is utterly unnecessary, and you know what? I have a nasty suspicion it’s only here as a “comic relief” moment. And Paolini writes comic relief about as well as a man gives birth. Every time that guy tries to make us laugh, a comedian hangs himself.
Hey, you know what always makes me laugh? Seeing a supposed Good Guy terrify and intimidate an innocent person just because she can! Which is exactly what Saphira does. Quoth offers her some sides of roast beef (just how many cows does the Varden have with them that they can afford to slaughter this many on a single day? Meat doesn’t keep for long without refrigeration, you know). Rather than use Eragon to relay what she wants, Saphira growls at the poor sod and scares the piss out of him. Eragon blandly states that she wants a live animal (why?).
Naturally he has no reaction to seeing her act like this. No sympathy for Quoth, no irritation toward Saphira. He’s just kind of there, being the emotionless cardboard cutout he usually is.
Saphira then demands a barrel of mead to wash it down. Quoth freaks out, stammering that the mead is reserved for someone else so he can’t give her any. Saphira’s reaction to this is to breathe fire at him. Upon which Quoth very understandably shits his pants and gives in to her demands.
Eragon? Still completely indifferent. I’m forced to assume that this is because he’s totally okay with bullying and physically threatening people.
They head over to the livestock pens, and Saphira sneers that the cows and such are “pitiful prey”. Yeah, because a cow that’s been given plenty of food every day, has never had to exercise overmuch and probably receives medical attention on a regular basis is just going to be so tough and stringy compared to a skinny wild deer which is probably riddled with parasites.
Shut the fuck up, Saphira. I’ve met three year olds who were less whiny and spoilt than you. I mean really – what sort of person gets snotty and picky about something they’re being given for free?
Other than Eragon, I mean. Maybe that’s where he got his lousy attitude from.
Or maybe they’re just both a pair of complete assholes who act like the sun shines out of their posteriers 24-7.
Anyway, moving on – Saphira also whines about how she’s not actually hungry. Eragon suggests she pick a smaller animal, but she says no – it has to be something big for his purposes. We now learn that in fact the real reason they’re doing this is so Eragon can grab some “energy” off a dying animal as Saphira kills it. Wow, that’s… fucking creepy as hell.
We get a detailed description of what the cow Saphira picks looks like, because of course we do, and we also get to see the poor thing’s terror as they lead it over to her. I feel more sympathy for this nameless cow than for any of the alleged heroes. Saphira kills it in gruesome detail, and Eragon snatches its energy. We get a description of that too.
Closing his eyes, Eragon reached out with his mind toward the cow. The animal’s consciousness had already faded into darkness, but its body was still alive, its flesh thrumming with motive energy, which was all the more intense for the fear that had coursed through it moments before. Repugnance for what he was about to do filled Eragon, but he ignored it and, placing a hand over the belt of Beloth the Wise, transferred what energy he could from the body of the cow into the twelve diamonds hidden around his waist. The process took only a few seconds.
Aw, look, he’s pretending to have a conscience again. It’s so cute when he does that. Hey, remember how he felt “repugnance” when he snapped that captured soldier’s neck in cold blood, and when he slaughtered all those guys at the Battle of the Burning Plain? I don’t. Also, what the fuck is “motive energy” and what is that term even doing in a fantasy novel for 13 year old kids? And just who the hell is Beloth the Wise? I bet Paolini doesn’t even know.
Tangent time! I once wrote a short story in which the protagonist finds a super valuable gemstone which is said to be cursed. It’s specifically stated that the stone was mined in a certain country which the reader is already familiar with, then stolen from the treasury of the ruler of a different country the reader is also familiar with. This took me less than a paragraph to get across because I was working within established lore/geography from the setting.
Paolini, on the other hand, just drops this stuff in with zero context and never takes it any further than that. Which makes his attempts at lore come across as shallow and meaningless because it’s not connected to anything. Beloth the Wise isn’t important because he doesn’t exist and never has existed. He’s just a name with nothing whatsoever attached to it, and there’s no more to it than that.
Anyway, so while Saphira is enjoying her “pitiful prey”, Eragon aborbs the energy from all the other animals who are currently being slaughtered by the cooks.
Wait, why did he need to bring Saphira into it, then? Couldn’t he have just hung around and done exactly what he’s doing now? He moans about how he hates doing it because he has to share the pain and fear of the animals as they’re killed. Apparently the diamonds in his belt seem to have unlimited capacity and he only stops when he just can’t stand the horror any more.
Hey, you know what I just reailsed? Eragon only has a problem with other people/animals’ pain and suffering if he’s mentally sharing it. Otherwise he doesn’t give a rat’s ass. Think about it. He didn’t feel any anguish at all while personally slaughtering those soldiers on the way back from Helgrind, or any of the other times he hacked up other humans like deli meat. But now he’s in these animals’ heads and feeling it as they die, he suddenly cares.
This leads me to conclude that he only feels empathy when he literally has no other choice. The rest of the time he’s fine and dandy. I know it’s been said a zillion times before but – PSYCHOPATH. I mean, come on! He only feels it if he’s FORCED to. He doesn’t feel empathy as a matter of course like the rest of us.
Good fuck this guy is creepy. I couldn’t write a more horrifying villain if I tried.
Saphira finishes her num-nums, then asks for her stolen mead. She drinks it and then sneezes fire. This time Eragon cares that she’s recklessly breathing fire in a public place, because it singes his face.
See? When she’s doing it deliberately to a hapless terrified ally, he doesn’t care. But when it mildly inconveniences him he suddenly has a problem with it and gives her a telling off.
Again, psychopath.
The two of them fly back to his tent, where they have a moment in which they let their “shared emotions” speak for themselves.
What shared emotions? I don’t know; it doesn’t say. It just says they have emotions. Don’t ask me how I can possibly be expected to empathise with them right now when I don’t even know what they’re supposed to be feeling.
I really wish Paolini would stop skipping over his characters’ emotional reactions as if they were some sort of minor trivial detail. Apparently describing the exact markings on a cow’s flank and speculating about a nameless dead soldier’s mustache is more important. Priorities, people!
Finally they separate their minds, which Eragon finds traumatic. Why? It’s not as if their mental bond actually does anything other than letting them talk telepathically. Yes, Paolini, I know that’s not supposed to be the case but you’re still wrong. If it’s not on the page, then as far as I’m concerned it isn’t canon.
We then get a ridiculously detailed description of everything Eragon packs for the trip. This includes a copy of the shitty poem he wrote in Elfland. In a few years once he’s written a hell of a lot more poetry he’s going to be SO embarrassed by his terrible first effort. I know I was.
Wait, he never does write any more poetry, does he? And I distinctly remember him claiming to really enjoy it back in Eldest. I guess it’s just not important any more. By which I mean Paolini forgot about it or couldn’t be bothered to follow through. And don’t tell me it’s because Eragon just doesn’t have the free time any more. He’s got time to hang out with irrelevant side characters and bully people into giving his dragon free mead. If he really wanted to keep on with the poetry he’d be doing it.
Anyhoo, along with that he also packs the “faelnirv” energy drink Oromis gave him (I vote we start calling it Elforade) plus a “small soapstone box of nalgask”. Wait, what? What’s nalgask? I have zero recollection of this ever being mentioned before. Could someone please enlighten me? Why is it in a soapstone box anyway? What is it for? What does it do? Why am I supposed to even care? What was in that mysterious glowing briefcase? Who really shot JFK? And how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?
He doesn’t bother to pack any spare underpants or anything, though, because he assumes that the dwarves will just give him free clothes when he gets there. I’m sure they have plenty of human-sized clothing lying around, Eragon. So don’t you worry your empty little head about it, you whiny, spoilt, entitled, psychopathic piece of shit.
Then he casts a spell of invisibilty on himself. Which would have been so incredibly useful back when, oh I don’t know, he was running around in enemy territory unarmed and without his dragon. What the actual fuck? Did Paolini even bother to think ahead at all? (My money is on “no”). I’d buy him not having used it before if there was some sort of explanation, like maybe it only lasts for ten minutes at a time and takes a lot of energy, but nope. We get nothing.
Let’s not even get into all the other plot holes this spell just created, such as why he doesn’t use it during fights. In fact, why doesn’t he ever use it to sneak into places like – oh, I don’t know – Dras-Leona? Seriously, why do they even need to have seiges and mass slaughter when this superpowered douchebag can just magic himself invisible, get into the castle undetected, take the leader hostage and force them to order a surrender? Think of the number of lives it could save! But once again, Mr Humane and Empathetic, Butter-Wouldn’t-Melt-In-His-Mouth never so much as considers it, and nor does anyone else.
To misquote a snarky movie critic I’m rather fond of, this novel is really starting to hurt me in my common sense.
He then cuts his way out of the back of his tent for no reason. Also for no reason, Furry Elf (we really need to come up with a better goofy nickname for him so we don’t have to keep looking for the “insert symbol” function on Microsoft Word) is standing guard behind the tent rather than in front of it.
…I wonder if the tent has any “wards” on it? In fact, why don’t ALL the tends have stupid wards on them to make them fireproof? They’re in a war up against DRAGONS, for gods’ sakes! Apparently that was just too much effort; in the next book a bunch of Varden mooks get roasted alive in their tents after Thorn sets them on fire. But who cares about them, right? They’re not elves or bonded to any dragons, so they can all fuck off and die as far as Our Hero is concerned.
Moving on… Furry Anime Ripoff Guy knows it’s Eragon despite the invisibility spell (I guess he sensed his mind or some bullshit like that), and just calmly lets him go on his way. What, he doesn’t want an explanation as to what the hell Mr Centre of the Universe is doing walking around invisible and vandalising his own tent?
I’m going to assume he figured Ergs was off to spy on Arya in the bath and decided to refrain from commenting.
Eragon then sneaks out of the camp, and makes a big screaming deal out of it. What if someone spots his “footprints of shadow”? (Chapter title drop!). What if someone hears him??
Dude, you’re in an army camp with lots of people wandering about. Nobody’s going to notice a damn thing. Maybe if people were actively looking for you, but otherwise – no.
Once he’s gotten over the defensive wall thingy, he even casts a spell to hide his footprints in the dirt. Okay, this has crossed far over the line into just plain paranoid behaviour. Not to mention that he’s wasting magic; I don’t have magical powers despite what my admirers apparently believe, but I can hide footprints pretty easily using the arcane instrument known as “A Stick With Leaves On It”. Failing that I can employ the mystic art known as “Scuffing Up The Ground With The Side Of My Boot, Which Has A Steel Toecap For Kicking People In The Shins And Breaking Down Doors”.
Eragon finally runs off, still being super paranoid that someone might spot the tiny puffs of dust from his shoes. He really thinks he’s Just That Important, doesn’t he? Everybody always pays attention to him, even when he’s invisible! (And later on when he’s not even present).
He eventually comes across Nar Garz- you know what, I’m not being paid enough to bother to get the spelling right – the Urgal leader, Gargle, waiting for him. For some bizarre reason the moment Eragon calls out to him his invisibility spell stops working. It doesn’t actually say that; it just randomly says he’s “visible again” immediately after he speaks out. He doesn’t cast a counter-spell or anything of the sort.
So… the spell is contingent on the user keeping his mouth shut? Now I have another reason to ask why Eragon doesn’t use it more often. The less that pompous little asshat opens his big stupid mouth, the better.
Eragon asks why Gargle is coming with him, given that he’s the leader. I’d say it’s because Paolini couldn’t be bothered to introduce a new character. Gargle says it’s because Eragon is super important (gosh, really? I had no idea. This is only the 50,000th time that’s been pounded into my head) and without him the Urgals can’t have their revenge on Galbatorix. Oh, and apparently they’re not really called Urgals – the proper name is “Urgralgra”. I guess that name was slightly less ridiculous, hence the retcon? Wait, what am I even saying? That's ten times worse!
Okay, here’s a challenge for you guys at home. Gurgle adds that his “blood brother” (what does that even mean) will be taking charge while he’s away. Can anyone here pronounce the guy’s name? I tried it, and according to my doctor I won’t be able to operate heavy machinery or eat spicy food for two weeks. They still haven’t figured out where my tonsils landed, but part of my tongue eventually turned up on the roof and I’m still coughing up pieces of larynx.
It’s “Skgahgrezh”. Where was this guy when the vowels were handed out – behind the door? Thank all that’s holy, as far as I know Skrgrargeagegwag won’t ever be mentioned again.
Oh yeah, and apparently Eragon’s name among the Urgals is “Firesword”. I’ve said it before, but don’t you just love it how fantasy heroes collect new names/titles like they’re ribbons at a primary school eisteddfod? How many bloody titles does Eragon have by this point? I’ve counted at least four so far.
Hypothetical Hack Fantasy Author:“Hmm, maybe if my self-insert protagonist has a really cool name/title he’ll magically stop being a total weenie! And if he has five or six of the things, he’ll become even more Awesome! Oh, and I’ll give him lots of cool possessions/abilities too! …Character development? Nah, that’s too much like hard work.”
We also learn that Eragon is still a huge racist:
Of all the Urgals, he trusted Garzhvog the most, for he had probed the Kull’s consciousness before the Battle of the Burning Plains and had discovered that, by the standards of his race, Garzhvog was honest and reliable.As long as he doesn’t decide that his honor requires him to challenge me to a duel, we should have no cause for conflict
“By the standards of his race”.
By the standards of his race.
Seriously. I know this is going to sound really offensive but fuck it, I’m going to do it anyway because it needs to be said – take that paragraph and replace “Urgal” with “Negro” or some equally nasty term for someone who’s not white. In fact, try picturing Gargle as a human who happens to be black or Asian or Jewish, and then try to imagine that this thought of Eragon’s isn’t obscenely racist and horrible. I mean, my gods. This is worse than the old “oh, (black guy) is so well-spoken!”
It gets even worse in the next chapter, when we learn that Urgal culture is basically an ignorant ripoff of Native American/tribal cultures, and again later on when their reward for joining the Varden is being handed some nice reservations to live on. Hey, did you know Montana has a depressingly large population of white supremacists? I’m just throwing it out there.
Thankfully, the chapter finally ends before I burst a blood vessel.
